Volkert Petrus Douw (1720-1801) [ Sec 52 Lot 19]
Founding father of Colonial Albany, Vice-president of the First Provincial Congress, 25th mayor of Albany, Captain in the Colonial Militia, Indian commissioner, First judge of County Court and New York State senator.
Volkert was born on March 23, 1720, and baptized in the Albany Dutch Church. He was the only surviving son among the nine children born to Petrus and Anna Van Rensselaer Douw.
I his early years, he worked in the family’s store located in downtown Albany, and on the family farm across the Hudson River in what is now the city of Rensselaer. In 1742, at age twenty-two, Douw was married to Anna De Peyster, the daughter of Johannes de Peyster III who served as mayor of Albany. They built a home in the country about a mile below Albany on the eastern bank of the Hudson River calling it Wolvenhook. Together, they were the parents of nine children.
Like his father, he worked for a time as a skipper on the Hudson River, eventually returning to Albany to manage the family store. Volket held many positions in public service, many of them simultaneously. From 1750 to 1760, he was Deputy Mayor, and serving as Mayor of Albany from 1761 to 1770. During the French and Indian War he was a Captain of the Colonial Militia. Volkert was appointed the first Judge of Albany County Court (court of common pleas), serving eighteen years from 1757 to 1775. From 1761 until the 1780s, he was a member of the Colonial General Assembly of New York. During the Revolutionary War, he served the American cause as a member of the Albany Committee of Correspondence, delegate to the Provincial Congress, and as a commissioner and commissary to the Indians.
Volkert’s public standing was based on heritage; greatly enhanced by the large fortune he amassed through trading, exporting, contract businesses, and land management. During his mayoral tenure, the Albany holdings alone identified him as among the city's wealthiest residents.
By 1775. Volkert relocated permanently to Wolvenhook, leaving the store and his other Albany business to the next generation. Douw augmented his country holdings, adding additional acreage especially to the east bank estate where, in 1790, his household was served by fourteen slaves.
In 1786, he was elected to the New York State Senate and served until 1793. Volkert P. Douw died at Wolvenhook in March 1801. He was originally buried in a family cemetery on the farm, his remains moved years later to the distinctive Douw crypt slotted into a hillside on Section 52, Lot 19.